It'll Be Okay, Yeon
Leaving Emilla sitting there in a daze, I flung open the door to the headmaster's office and bolted straight out.
I had no destination in mind.
All I wanted was to escape this suffocating space.
I raced up the stairs and tore down the corridors in a frenzy, with no time to spare for the stares around me.
At last I reached a familiar door—the one that led to the rooftop of the Academy's main building.
Creeeak—
I pushed open the heavy iron door, and a cold wind brushed across my face.
An open expanse. Beneath a sky bleeding crimson at dusk, the Academy grounds and the distant city lights spread out before me in a single glance.
On any other day I would have called the view beautiful. Now it looked monochrome to my eyes.
I leaned against the railing and stared blankly downward.
I didn't want to think about anything.
Since possessing this body, I had rarely gotten angry. Practically never, if I was honest. No matter how unjust or unfair the situation, my unique ability always twisted the feeling into something else.
Even now… I still wasn't angry.
But I decided to force myself to dredge up the anger from before the possession.
At some point I had realized it: I was failing to restrain my desires even in situations where I didn't have to endure anything.
"…What the hell am I even doing?"
What was I struggling so hard for?
At first it had been to survive—to avoid the miserable end of the villainess Yeon Bennet. And if possible, I had wanted to save the characters from the game I loved. I had wanted to fulfill, here at least, the dream of becoming a hero that I never achieved in my previous life.
When the people of the mansion died, I moved out of guilt toward them. Since it was as good as me killing them, I vowed to live their share as well and save others—at least so their deaths would not be in vain.
But now…?
I couldn't help asking myself.
Was I really walking this path for them, or to save the world?
Or…
Was I actually just enjoying the pain, the humiliation, and every scrap of misery I would encounter along the way? Hiding behind the noble cause of saving people, was I merely satisfying my twisted desires? Was "I'll save people" nothing more than an excuse, and I was simply reveling in becoming miserable because of Masochist?
I was tired of self-reproach too.
Fuck.
What did I even do wrong.
As irritation surged, a faint pleasure began spreading from my head through my entire body again.
Masochist
Mental and physical pain makes you stronger. All forms of pain turn into pleasure.
This fucking ability turned even sadness, anxiety, despair, and anger into pure pleasure.
I tried hard to drag the sadness and anger out by force. I didn't want to be swallowed by this disgusting pleasure. I didn't want to become trash swayed by such emotions even in the face of parting with my Master.
Please, please don't take even this emotion away, I screamed inwardly.
But the more I struggled, the more strongly the ability mocked me. The more I suffered, the sadder I grew, the angrier I became, the clearer and more intense the pleasure became—like a swamp that only pulled me deeper the harder I fought to escape.
Me, feeling pleasure before sadness even before my Master's death.
Did someone like me even have the right to claim I would save anyone?
I looked down at the scenery with empty eyes. Everything grew hazy—the path I should take, the reason I should exist. I no longer knew what to move for. It felt like being left alone in a thick fog. My mind was a tangled mess, and my chest felt hollowed out and empty.
"…"
"We meet again here, Yeon."
A clear, familiar voice came from behind me. I knew who it was without turning my head.
Rina.
She had already come up beside me and leaned her arms on the railing. With the sunset at her back, she looked like a painting.
"I really must be lucky. I was just looking for you."
Rina said it with a gentle smile.
The effect of Unique Ability , I bet.
I grumbled inwardly.
Rina's Unique Ability Luck. The description was simple, but the effect was truly enormous: In any situation, it guides the ability holder toward the best possible outcome.
Did that even make sense? It was an absurd power that seemed to twist the very causality of the world. In the game it had been implemented as little more than "all attacks guaranteed critical," but the force that manifested in actual reality was far more subtle and powerful—like now, finding my location with uncanny accuracy from nothing more than the thought I want to find her.
"What is it this time…"
I asked as nonchalantly as I could.
"Hmm… rather than business…"
Rina hesitated a moment, then looked steadily at my face.
"So you can make that kind of expression too."
"What expression?"
Still smiling, Rina looked straight into my eyes and spoke calmly.
"A very… sad, lonely, lost expression. Like a child left alone in the world."
I snorted at her words.
"What do you know."
"I know."
Rina answered firmly. Her gaze never wavered from mine.
"I… have made that expression before too."
"…What?"
"Before becoming a Candidate Saintess, when I lived in the slums."
Her voice lowered a little. She continued while gazing at the city dyed red beyond the railing.
"Every day I had to struggle just to survive—amid hunger, cold, and… people's cold treatment."
Bitterness colored her tone.
"I didn't want to, but living there continuously made me grow more and more disillusioned with people. All I saw was them snatching, trampling, and deceiving rather than helping each other. I only thought the world was originally this ugly and selfish place."
I watched Rina's profile in silence.
Her past story from the game—a child abandoned without parents, wandering the back alleys of the slums. A girl who had to survive while stealing, getting beaten, and being despised. Certainly it must have been an environment far too harsh for a young girl to live alone.
"…That look like you understand everything… for some reason it feels unpleasant. Your share in that is pretty big too!!!"
The moment I showed even a slight stir, Rina suddenly raised her voice.
"So I just wanted to throw it all away and leave."
She continued, catching her breath.
"I didn't even know where to go, but I just wanted to escape this disgusting place. I wanted to go somewhere without people."
She paused. Her eyes wavered faintly, as if wandering through the memories of those loathsome days.
"I left the village on a whim and entered the forest, and of all things I ran into a monster there…"
Rina stopped, then suddenly lifted her head and looked at me again. That gaze no longer lingered in the past. It held something intense directed at me, here and now.
"While fleeing in a panic… someone I never expected saved me."
I sighed inwardly.
That wasn't me. It was the original owner of this body—'Yeon Bennet'—who did that.
Something from before the possession. A past I couldn't know. But there was no need to correct it.
"So what."
I still answered curtly.
"Did you come looking for me just to talk about the past?"
"No."
Rina shook her head. Her gaze grew serious again.
"Do you remember what you said to me back then?"
"Why would I remember every little thing like that?"
I snorted.
Rina paid no mind to my answer and spoke carefully, as if taking out a precious treasure.
"Back then, you said this to me."
She looked straight into my eyes and spoke in a very clear voice.
"It's okay. It'll all be okay."
Those words from Rina's mouth felt both unfamiliar and somehow familiar, like an old spell.
Really… the original Yeon Bennet said that? Hard to believe, but seeing Rina's serious expression, it didn't seem like a lie.
Rina took a breath and continued.
"Honestly, until then I really hated you. Selfish and just bullying others. But… even someone like you, seeing you move for others in truly important moments, changed my mind."
As if recalling that day's memory, her eyes shone faintly.
"No matter how foul-tempered and twisted a person is, there can still be a good part remaining inside. People aren't that simple."
She smiled faintly.
"Maybe it was thanks to that realization. Not long after that day, the divine power inside me awakened, and luckily I was chosen by a holy relic and rose to the position of Candidate Saintess like this."
Rina paused and looked up at the sky.
"Of course… being a Saintess was quite different from what I thought."
Complex emotions seemed to ride those words. Then she looked at me again. That gaze was deeper and warmer than before.
"Anyway, what I want to say is… I think I can understand you a little."
"…Understand?"
I asked back.
"Yes."
Rina nodded.
"Why you treat people so sharply and isolate yourself. Probably because you hate people. Like me. Because you've been hurt too much by the world, by people, and don't want to get hurt anymore."
Rina's words were wrong. I did keep my distance from people, but that was only out of necessity. The one I truly detested wasn't the world or others.
But I didn't bother correcting her. I didn't care how she thought of me. No—maybe her misunderstanding was rather fortunate.
Rina stepped one step closer and spoke with sincere eyes.
"So… the words you once said to me, I'll return them to you now."
She spoke in a soft but firm voice.
"I don't know what happened…"
"It'll all be okay, Yeon."
At those words, a corner of my frozen heart seemed to melt just a little.
Of course Rina didn't understand me at all. Her comfort was completely off the mark.
Still… strangely, it was a little comforting.